Hoffman, who surged to the brink of victory after becoming a rallying point for disaffected Republicans and tea party activists, lost to Democrat Bill Owens 49 percent to 46 percent in a contest that grabbed national headlines.

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“I think time was the biggest factor, and if [Hoffman had] had a bit more time, he would have won,” said Everett Wilkinson, a South Florida-based tea party organizer who was watching the contest closely. “I wouldn’t consider it a loss. I think we were successful.”

Janet Spencer, a South Carolina-based tea party activist who in September chartered two buses to take 75 of her neighbors to the nation’s capital for the Taxpayer March on Washington, went one step further, declaring the outcome a win.

“In my opinion, I do consider it kind of a victory because he had a lot of odds going against him and not a lot of time,” she said.

Others dismissed Tuesday’s defeat as one lost skirmish in a larger battle to remake the Republican Party and establish populist conservatism as a political force.

“We plan to continue to play a role when we see a candidate who should be kept from Congress or when we see a candidate who should be advanced,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List.

Dick Armey, the chairman of FreedomWorks, the limited-government, anti-tax organization that has been instrumental in ginning up tea parties, said Hoffman’s loss was simply a function of having too little time — just two months — to mount a successful campaign.

In a conference call Wednesday with reporters to discuss the 2009 election results, Dannenfelser, Campaign for Working Families PAC President Gary Bauer and National Organization for Marriage Executive Director Brian Brown largely avoided analyzing the New York special election and focused on GOP victories in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races.

Bauer, a longtime social conservative leader, trumpeted the defeat of a Maine measure that would have legalized gay marriage, with Dannenfelser declaring: “It was a big night for social conservatives, no doubt about it.”

If conservatives were preoccupied with reading the tea leaves of Hoffman’s loss, which came despite late polls suggesting the Conservative Party nominee had surged into a commanding lead, they weren’t showing it.

They refused to accept any share of the blame, shrugging off the defeat to a difficult political environment in the race — a three-way contest in which Republican Dede Scozzafava dropped out in the final days of the campaign and threw her support to Owens — and an inexperienced candidate in Hoffman.

“I think the dynamics were difficult,” said Dannenfelser, whose organization directed more than $140,000 to the contest in support of Hoffman.

Armey, the former House GOP majority leader, noted that Democrats had seized on Hoffman’s inability to address local concerns.

“The fact of the matter is, he didn’t pay enough attention to the local concerns, and they were able to tag him as being unaware of the local needs and concerns,” Armey said.

Some analysts concluded Wednesday that while the conservative grass-roots activists who descended on the district had provided Hoffman with his greatest boost, they also had become something of a political liability.

“I think there was a level of resentment among voters about the intervention in the district,” said Democratic pollster Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling, which surveyed the district the weekend before the election. “I think everyone who was undecided or everyone who changed their minds [in the final days of the race] voted for Owens.”

GOP Rep. Peter King, who represents a suburban New York district, said late-deciding voters recoiled from the influx of national activists into the rural district.